Chapter 4: Sheepshead Village
Two days later, at dusk, the setting sun bled red and orange across the open wilderness, and the silhouette of Sheepshead Village finally resolved itself at the edge of the horizon. The seat of House Cerwyn — a minor but reliable vassal of House Stark — sat on the northern bank of a tributary of the White Knife, its walls built of massive blue-grey stone that caught the last of the evening light and held it, the thick blocks doing exactly what they were built to do: keeping out the wind that never really stopped in the North.
The battlements along the top were even and well-maintained, and from the watchtowers hung the banners of House Cerwyn — a black battle-axe on a silver field, snapping stiff in the cold air.
"Sheepshead Village!" the lead scout called back down the column, his voice carrying the particular relief of a man who has been in the saddle for two days and can finally see somewhere to stop.
Willis pulled back on his reins and raised a fist to signal the column to slow. He studied the walls ahead for a moment, then turned back. "Pass the word down. Form up and hold. Nobody approaches the gates without my order."
The column compressed and settled, the clatter of armor and hooves bleeding away to near-silence.
Henry drew up alongside Willis and looked the castle over. The drawbridge was already down, its oak planking worn smooth and pale by years of cart traffic, connecting the road to an open square just inside the gate. A handful of Cerwyn men-at-arms stood at the bridgehead with spears in hand, the black axe visible on their breastplates. They watched the approaching army with the unhurried calm of men who had seen a dozen columns arrive in the past few days and expected a dozen more.
Henry and Willis rode to the gate and dismounted. Maewyn fell in behind Henry with the Reyne banner. The Manderly standard-bearer took up position at Willis's shoulder.
The man who came out to meet them was broad across the chest and shoulders, built like someone had stacked one solid thing on top of another and called it a man — mid-thirties, Henry guessed, with a plain, open face that carried an expression of genuine warmth that seemed slightly incongruous on someone his size. A double-headed battle-axe hung at his hip, its head worked in silver. His cloak was black wool, the Cerwyn axe embroidered along the hem, and it moved behind him in the wind as he walked.
He came out alone. No herald, no announcements. That was the North.
"Desmond Cerwyn, Lord of Sheepshead Village." He said it the way northmen usually said things — directly, no performance attached. "You've come a long way. You're welcome here."
"Willis Manderly." Willis pulled off his riding gloves and tucked them into his saddlebag. A nod, brief and friendly. Willis was never a man for speeches.
Maewyn drew breath beside Henry.
"Henry Reyne," Henry said, before Maewyn could get started.
"Rightful Lord of Casterly Rock," Maewyn said anyway, a half-beat behind.
Lord Desmond looked at Maewyn with an appreciative expression — the kind a man gets when he sees someone enthusiastic doing their job well — and then looked back at Henry. "I've heard the name. Glad you made it." He gestured toward the gate. "I've got barracks set up inside and food on. Come in and get warm."
A squire materialized at the right moment with a small wooden tray — bread cut into rough pieces, a dish of coarse salt beside it. Henry and Willis each took a piece, dipped it, and ate.
Guest right. The oldest law in Westeros, older than any king. Both parties were bound by it now, protected under the hospitality of gods old and new. To break it would be to invite a kind of shame that didn't wash off.
"My father's bringing the infantry up the White Knife by water," Willis said, as they followed Lord Desmond through the gate. "He should make the southern dock tonight or by morning at the latest."
"I'll have men there to meet the fleet when it arrives." Desmond waved a hand, and something flickered briefly in his expression — amusement, carefully understated. "I'll be honest with you, Manderly — I didn't expect your father to leave White Harbor. I'd half assumed he'd grown into the place."
Willis's expression didn't change much, but something in it shifted. "He's been unwell these past few years. Doesn't travel if he doesn't have to."
They passed through two rows of stone buildings and across a training yard where men were still drilling despite the hour, and then a pair of heavy oak doors were pulled open from the inside, and warmth hit them like a wall.
The great hall of Sheepshead Village's keep was a proper northern hall — long and low-ceilinged, with a hearth big enough to roast an ox burning hard at the center, the firelight making the room amber and close. The cold outside ceased to exist the moment you stepped through the door. Attendants moved quickly, setting out bowls of thick soup, platters of roasted meat, and wooden cups of dark ale.
Lord Desmond settled into the high seat and raised his cup in greeting before they'd even sat down. "Didn't expect you this fast, to be honest. My levies are still coming in from the outlying farms — another few days before I'll have the full muster."
"White Harbor can mobilize more quickly than most," Willis said, with the particular modesty of a man who is aware he's making a point.
Henry took a careful sip of ale and shifted his weight on the bench, trying to find a position that didn't remind him exactly how long he'd been sitting on a horse in full armor. Two days without removing the scarlet plate. His back felt like someone had replaced it with old wood.
The attendants had just finished a second round of drinks when the hall doors swung open hard enough to make the nearest candles gutter.
A maester came in at something close to a run, his grey robes in disarray, the chain around his neck swinging with each step — the links clanking against each other in the sudden quiet of the hall. He was breathing hard. His expression was the expression of a man who has read something he can't quite believe yet.
"My lord." He stopped before Lord Desmond's seat. "A raven. Urgent."
He said the rest quickly, as if slowing down would make it harder to believe. "Victarion Greyjoy — Iron Captain of the Iron Fleet — has led the ironborn in a surprise raid on Lannisport. Lord Tywin's fleet." He paused for just a moment. "Every ship burned at anchor. The whole of it. Not one vessel left afloat."
The hall was quiet.
Then Lord Desmond's fist came down on the table hard enough to rattle the cups, and he laughed — a real laugh, the kind that comes from the gut. "Victarion Greyjoy, you mad bastard. That's worth drinking to."
Henry was already raising his cup.
There was history in this news, and he knew it well. Generations back, when the Westerlands had still been a kingdom unto itself, a Lannister king named Tommen the Second had poured the full wealth of the Rock into a fleet — the Golden Fleet, they'd called it — and sailed it east toward the ruins of Valyria, hungry for whatever treasures the Doom had left behind. Tommen and every ship and every man had sailed into that smoking sea and never come back. The Lannister ancestral Valyrian steel sword, Brightroar, had gone with them.
The Westerlands' naval power had never fully recovered from that particular act of royal ambition. Tywin Lannister, in the years since he'd taken control of Casterly Rock, had made rebuilding the Lannister fleet one of his long, patient projects — the same way he'd made everything else a long, patient project. He'd tried repeatedly to buy a Valyrian steel sword from other houses to replace Brightroar, and been refused every time. The fleet had been his consolation, his monument, years of gold and effort finally taking shape in the harbor at Lannisport.
And Victarion Greyjoy had burned every plank of it without it ever leaving port.
"To the Iron Captain," Henry said, and drank. "I hope he gives us half as much trouble on the battlefield as he's just given Tywin."
Willis raised his own cup with the others and drank. Then he set it down and said, with complete composure: "I was planning to cut him into four pieces when we meet him. I'm now reconsidering. Perhaps only two."
[Milestone: 500 Power Stones = +1 Chapter]
[Milestone: 10 Reviews = +1 Chapter]
Enjoyed this chapter? Leave a review.
20+advanced chapters on P1treon Soulforger